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On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Neil Winchurst <barnaby@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > My wife has a laptop, Windows XP, I have a laptop, Linux Mint and the family > has a desktop, Kubuntu Hardy. > > I was wondering about getting a memory stick as a means of transferring > data. > > Are there any things, traps, pitfalls, etc to watch out for? I suspect there > might be some brands that are not very good on Linux. > > thanks, > > Neil Most memory sticks will behave much like a harddrive and will come with a FAT filesystem on the first partition. Some manufacturers, however, don't seem to bother with the partitioning side of things and put the filesystem straight on the device (much in the same way as a floppy disk doesn't have a 'partition' but has the filesystem straight on the device). This has, in my experience, caused problems when trying to access it under Windows... it'll work most of the time but sometimes it seems inaccessible, so the user will simply 'yank' the memory stick out of the USB slot, potentially corrupting things. The most irritating thing I have come across, so far, has been the "U3" software that comes pre-loaded on some of them. Unless you use the U3 remover tool, it can be a P.I.T.A. to get rid of it. Grant. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html